


Listen to your boss's intern!

by Shirosbluesamurai



Series: Peter and the Tower [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Pepper Potts, Michelle Jones is Awesome, Michelle Jones-centric, Michelle is Pepper's intern, Michelle is hella smart, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts is Michelle's mentor, Peter Parker is a good friend, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 05:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17843120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirosbluesamurai/pseuds/Shirosbluesamurai
Summary: Michelle is forced to take charge at Stark Industries when something goes wrong and Pepper isn't around to fix it.





	Listen to your boss's intern!

**Author's Note:**

> This was highly requested so I hope you all like it! This also won't be the only story of Michelle as Pepper's intern.

Michelle was interning for Pepper Potts, and yes it was awesome, if not a little stressful. Michelle didn’t know what to expect when she started interning for Pepper Potts. All she knew was that whatever she was doing now, definitely wasn’t that. She thought she would be running to get coffee for Ms. Potts, or answering phone calls, but instead, she was being primed and groomed to be the next CEO of Stark Industries.

No one knew, though. Not even Mr. Stark or Peter, who was the heir to the company. It all started one fateful day when Pepper called Michelle in for an appointment.

 

_“Michelle, it is so nice to finally meet you,” Pepper said with a smile. “Peter talks a lot about you.”_

 

_“Thank you for meeting with me, Ms. Potts. I understand that a busy woman like yourself has little time to spare.” Michelle answered with a slight inclination of her head._

 

 _“Michelle, do you know why I have asked you here?”_  

 

_Michelle frowned slightly and shook her head. Pepper raised her shoulders and rolled them back so she looked even more like the businesswoman the world knew her to be._

 

_“Michelle, I have been thinking for a long time. In 10 years or so, I plan on stepping down from being the CEO of Stark Industries and handing the role off to capable hands. I realized that whoever I picked needed to be trusted by Peter since he is the heir of the company as I assume you know.”_

 

_Pepper paused and looked at Michelle who nodded in agreement._

 

_“My successor would also need to be trained to handle the responsibility of running the global country. It’s not something anyone can just pick up. I have been looking into you, Michelle. Peter trusts you and you have a brilliant and insightful mind. Michelle, I have come to the decision that I want to train you to be the next CEO of Stark Industries. You are perfect for the role. Would this be something you’re interested in?”_

 

_It took a lot of self-control for Michelle to stay cool, calm, and collected. This offer was a dream come true. SI used clean energy, was run by a woman, and helped people all over the world. MJ was sure that the next CEO to be picked would have been a man. It made sense, statistically._

 

_“I… I don’t know what to say, Ms. Potts. I am truly honored that you have considered me for this role and I graciously accept your offer.” MJ said with the biggest grin on her face that she could no longer suppress. Pepper smiled brightly as well. “Lovely. I will email you the terms of this agreement by Monday. See you soon, Michelle.”_

 

Michelle’s schedule had quickly turned crazy after that, but she was thriving. She was at the tower at least 4 days a week and was sitting through company meetings, answering emails, and helping Pepper make executive decisions.

 

The workers on Iota had come to know her. They didn’t know exactly who she was, but they did know that she worked closely with Pepper. They respected her, but also feared her, which she thought was hilarious. Imagine, middle-aged and older people being scared of a sixteen-year-old.

 

MJ was also getting closer to Peter, which she hated to admit but she loved. Happy drove them both to the tower every day and the chatted about their lives, SI, and everything in between. They also ate meals with each other at the tower pretty often. It was nice. And even though Peter did ramble excessively, MJ had come to love it and took comfort in Peter’s rambling in the middle of the night when they both were running behind on their work.

 

Summary of the story, Michelle had a lot of things going for her. But, when Iota went through a legal crisis, and Pepper was in Dubai, Michelle was put in charge. Unfortunately, MJ was still in school when this happened. But thankfully, she had gotten the call (or multiple, very frantic calls) during lunch.

 

“Michelle! We need you at the tower! Something just happened and-”

 

“Michelle, the files-”

 

The system overloa-”

 

“Need you-”

 

Michelle took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face. Where was Pepper? Oh right, Dubai. Of course, all of this had to happen when Pepper was away. She felt her phone buzz again and resisted the growl rising in her throat. She was grateful when she looked at the screen and saw it was Pepper calling her, not another frantic worker.

 

“Hey, Michelle. I’m assuming you heard what’s happening in legal right now?” Pepper said in a worried tone.

 

“Yea, I did. But I… I don’t know what to do. I’m still in school for another two hours and my phone has been blowing up nonstop for the last 15 minutes.” Michelle explained with a heavy sigh.

 

“ Okay here is the plan. Michelle, you will finish school and then Happy will come and pick you and Peter up. You will handle the situation as I have trained you to do, okay? Take a breath, Michelle. I understand that this is the first major problem that you are handling without me, but I have full confidence in you.” Pepper assured her. “Michelle, the earliest I can come back Sunday. Can you handle this situation for now?”

 

Michelle was currently sitting on the dirty bleachers near the football field, on the phone with one of the most powerful women in the world. Oh, how life worked sometimes. Peter and Ned were talking and giggling quietly a few feet away from her. Michelle sighed quietly again into the phone and pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

“Yes, Ma’am. I will handle it.”

 

“Thank you, Michelle. And remember, you can do this,” Pepper said confidently into the phone.

 

“Thanks, Pepper. I won’t let you down.”

 

“I know you won’t. See you on Sunday.”

 

Michelle hung up the phone and started emailing her team and the other teams on Iota.

 

“Everything okay, MJ?” Peter asked her after a few minutes. She nodded her head. “Everything is fine, thanks, dweeb. Just a little… busy in the office.”

 

Peter nodded in understanding and smiled at her. “Hey if you need any help, let me know.”

 

She smiled at him and almost laughed. Peter knew nothing about the legal side of SI and would probably do more harm than good. But, he still wanted to help and it warmed her heart.

 

The lunch bell rang and Michelle was grateful that there were only two periods left.

 

MJ almost ran out the doors of the front of school, dragging Peter along behind her,  once the final bell rang. Happy was waiting for them and they quickly headed to the tower.

 

“Miss Jones, I would suggest you put this in, legal has been freaking out for hours.” Happy said as he held out an earpiece for her. She took it from his hand and placed it in her ear. Immediately, she was greeted with loud arguments, semi-hysterical yells, and frustrated groans.

 

“Quite! What have you all been doing for the last 2 and a half hours? Throwing tantrums? Get back to work! I will be arriving at the tower in less than 20 minutes and you all better have your shit together,” She ordered strictly into the piece. The noise on the other end halted, but she heard a collective breath of relief.

 

“Yes, Miss Jones.”

 

“Of course, Miss Jones we apologize for our behavior.”

 

“Good, now will someone please brief me on what the hell is going on?”

 

They got to the tower and Michelle raced through security and to the elevator. “Michelle Jones, Sector Iota PA. Welcome back, Miss Jones.”

 

“Thanks, FRI. Take me to Iota 64.”

 

“Of course, Miss Jones.”

 

Michelle took a deep breath as the elevator started moving up. “ You can do this. Pepper believes in you. Show her you were the right choice.”

 

The elevator opened and Michelle confidently stepped onto the floor. All commotion stopped and every person (which was everyone in legal) on the floor looked at her for direction.

 

“Mandatory meeting in five on Zeta 79. Get your teams together. Don’t be late.” MJ said as she walked past them; they all rushed back into motion after her statement. Michelle pushed the door open to Pepper’s office and dropped her backpack on the floor. She grabbed her Stark computer sitting in the corner and quickly typed in the code and all the other security encrypted into it. This laptop was used specifically for SI, and she wasn’t allowed to leave the building with it.

 

She headed down to Zeta and was pleased to see most of legal waiting for her there. She took her place at the head of the table. “Okay, I need the full report.”

 

A man named Mohan cleared his throat and pulled out a file. “Four hours ago, we got alerted that $200 million disappeared from one of our bank accounts. We tried to track it but the bank would not give us any information until we got the CFO (chief financial officer) or someone of higher rank on the phone that knew the passcode to the account, which of course, we couldn’t do. But, we did look into which account it was taken from and it was taken from our Employee Payment Account.”

 

Michelle took a sharp breath and motioned for him to continue.

 

“This would not be such a problem if payday wasn’t-”

 

“-tomorrow,” MJ said and Mohan nodded.

 

“Right.”

 

Michelle let out the umpteenth sigh of the day and sat up straighter, just like Pepper taught her to do.

 

“Okay. Here’s the plan. I am going to access that bank account. Kelly, you and your team are with me. Mohan, you and the rest of your team are going to find out how long it will take to wire all the money to the employees once we get it back. John, you and the rest of the hackers need to follow the trace once the bank gives us some information. And Raina, you and your team need to start making calculations based on how many employees are affected by this and I need you to research which regions are getting payday tomorrow. The rest of you know what to do. Get to work, we have a long night ahead of us and people are relying on us.” Michelle commanded them. They all nodded in acknowledgment and determination and went to follow her instructions.

 

She waited for them all to leave before banging her head against the table. She sat there for a moment before heading to the elevator.

 

“Hello, yes, I am Michelle Jones called on behalf of Stark Industries. I am calling in regards to the Employee Payment Account and the money stolen from it. Yes, yes. The passcode is: 10, 08, 01, 16, 16. Yes, I understand.”

 

The conversation went on for three hours. Everyone worked tirelessly. Michelle did not understand how the bank workers were such idiots, but they were. And then finally, finally, they gave her all the information she needed. The information was passed to the trackers who then followed it’s trace for 5 hours, but hit a dead end and needed to restart. They kept working, and by the time they found the littlest cookie crumb to follow, it was 4 in the morning. And yet, no one stopped working,

 

There were so many things to do and so little time. Michelle was sure that they were all running off the coffee that Peter had brought up to them every quarter of an hour. But, at some point, Michelle had made him go to bed, as they had school the next day.

 

It was around 11 am when the found who the money was transferred to and it took all but five minutes for Michelle to get on the phone with the criminals and threaten a lawsuit worth 4 times the money they took if they did not wire it back at that very instance.

 

Of course, everyone is afraid of Michelle. Especially when she is sleep-deprived, angry, and frustrated. The money was wired in a matter of seconds. Michelle left the threat hanging of a call from the Stark Industries lawyers before hanging up the phone.

The next thing to do was rebuilt the security and firewalls, and Michelle knew that took long but refused to leave until the job was done. Michelle also had so many emails to send, answering complaints on why the employees' money will be a few hours later than usual, reassuring the employees that they will get their money, and angry emails from other high up legal men, to which Michelle assured the multiple times that everything was handled and under control.

 

She was sitting at Pepper’s desk for almost three days straight when she finally finished all her work. She stumbled to the corner of the office and decided that it would be fair if she got a few minutes of shut-eye. Just a few minutes.

 

Pepper was glad to be back. She had been on the phone with people in legal all throughout her flight. She tried calling Michelle, but Michelle didn’t answer. Pepper got worried for a moment until the others in legal reassured that MJ was fine, holed up in Pepper’s office and crazy busy, but fine.

 

The others also told her how the whole situation was handled under Michelle’s leadership, and how they were creating solutions so it couldn’t happen again. To say the least, Pepper was impressed. But also, very proud.

 

The first thing she did when she got to the tower was dash to her office so she could properly congratulate her little assistant, and maybe even take her out for some celebratory ice cream. When she entered her flor on Iota, she politely greeted the other workers and praised them for all their hard work. She stepped into her office and shut the door quietly behind her. Her eyes roamed the room and her lips rolled into a fond smile when she saw Michelle.

 

The girl was leaned against one of the file cabinets pressed against the wall and was curled up making the future CEO of the company look so small. She was obviously sleeping for the first time in quite a few days, as was evident by the dark circles around her eyes. Pepper walked over to her and brushed Michelle’s hair back lightly.

 

“I am so proud of you,” Pepper whispered. She threw a blanket over the girl and walked back over to her desk. She had work to do and when anyone walked in and saw the girl sleeping in the corner, they didn't mention it.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or a like if you liked it!


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